When Young People Speak Out, and Everyone Else Thinks It's Silly

Pussy Riot, image via Last.fm

I've noticed a trend that troubles me. People have commented before, on Tumblr and other social media platforms, but I just thought I'd say a word about it.

One of the first instances I noticed was when I was shown a clip from the 1960's TV show Dragnet. The clip was from an episode called "The Big Departure," in which Sgt. Joe Friday and Officer Bill Gannon deliver a speech to a few teenagers that tried to start their own community and stole from a grocery store.  

First, the two officers explain to the morose adolescents that they are extremely privileged when compared to earlier generations. They try to make them feel guilty about complaining when they obviously have everything. After that, they attempt to make the teenagers feel bad about the technology they've grown up with. But teenagers didn't invent the technology they were using...I wonder what generation gave it to them?

Personally I think this kind of rhetoric encourages conformity and a nihilistic worldview. If we don't encourage our young people to speak out about the things that matter to them, who do we think will be making changes in the future? How will the big things change for the better if we can't even be bothered to address the small things? I'm not saying that these teenagers were in the right, especially since vandalism and speaking out are not necessarily the same thing, but they did seem to be dissatisfied with society and their concerns should not have been brushed off so lightly.

I am forever behind on news, so I've only recently heard about the backstory of the feminist musical group Pussy Riot. A few years ago they were whipped and some of their members imprisoned for public displays of political and religious dissatisfaction in Russia. When asked about this in an interview, President Putin responded that there were other countries in which these women would have been treated even more violently.

While it's true that some have thing worse than others, I think that this kind of rhetoric is incredibly unproductive. It encourages inactivity and silence on the grounds that things could be worse, that the oppression could be greater. If we silence those who warn against the problems that are already there, what will stop them from becoming worse?

I realize that I am comparing apples and oranges here between the campy representation of 1960's youth in Dragnet and the women of Pussy Riot. I'm not necessarily saying that every protest is good or helpful. But I refuse to call it "wisdom" or "maturity" when adults try to make out that young people are troublesome and stupid when they try to speak out against the things that are clearly enough of a problem to merit a response. If adulthood is about going along with things even if they don't seem right to you for the sake of personal peace and comfort, then may these young people never "understand when they're older."

8 Songs for People That Hate Christmas Music

image via Flickr, artist Ian T. McFarland

 It's Christmas Eve. You can see the light shining at the end of the tunnel. Only one more day of commercial Christmas music. Soon there will be no more Frosty, no more Rudolph, no more stalker Santa “seeing you when you're sleeping,” and no more holiday date rape based on a pretense of “baby, it's cold outside.” But the distance between you and musical freedom somehow still seems so far away...


If this is you right now, I sympathize. I stopped enjoying Christmas music many years ago. It's sentimental without depth, attempting to manipulate people into a frame of mind that makes it easier to sell things to them. Personally, the holiday season is difficult for me as I work at a place that requires that only Christmas music be played from Thanksgiving until Christmas. That being the case, I'm always looking for alternatives that still satisfy that requirement without annoying me too greatly.


Here is a list I've compiled of songs that are perfect for any cynic's holiday playlist.


1. “Don't Shoot Me Santa” by The Killers


The darkness, humor, and existential sadness of The Killers is much needed during the holidays. This song brings out the scary side of Santa Claus culture among children, namely the fact that some little kids end up on the “naughty” list. Only the consequences are apparently much greater for adults.


2. “Blue Xmas” by Miles Davis


This is one of the most cynical Christmas songs I know. It's basically a long description of everything about the holidays that has become corrupted. It's also Miles Davis, so it's obviously great jazz with or without the lyrics.


3. “Jingle Bells” by The Sex Pistols


This is the best version of “Jingle Bells” ever created. It's completely unpolished and uncontrived; just the Sex Pistols having some fun.


4 and 5. “Yule Shoot Your Eye Out” by Fall Out Boy or, alternately, “Merry Christmas, Kiss My Ass” by All Time Low.


No Christmas Playlist is complete without a classic emo song about rejection and holiday heartbreak. And no Christmas playlist should have more than one. I recommend choosing between these two. Not only do they encapsulate the collective angst of the 2000s with a bitter aftertaste of “nice guys finish last,” but the choruses have catchy hooks.


6. “White Christmas” by Guns'n'Roses


Much like my Sex Pistols recommendation, this song is a hard rock cover of an old classic. I don't really need to say any more about this one. The fact that it is by Guns'n'Roses should be enough.


7. “Chipmunks Roasting On an Open Fire” by Bob Rivers


To be honest, this one's a little dark even for my taste. It's a parody of “The Christmas Song,” but instead of chestnuts it's the chipmunks being roasted on a spit. The most disturbing thing about it is that you can hear the classic chipmunk voices as they react to being literally burned alive. You've got to really hate Alvin and his friends to enjoy this song. I do not recommend this one for children, unless your kids are really twisted and sadistic.


8. “O Tannenbaum” by Psychostick

This humorous song parodies the style of German industrial rock band Rammstein. The video features the band members attempting to participate in holiday traditions in as metal a manner as humanly possible. It's a perfect Christmas song for metalheads or anyone that wants to headbang out their holiday-induced aggression.


I hope these songs help you get through last hours of the commercial holiday. I also hope that you can find simple joys in your own way, and ignore what the corporations tell you about how you should celebrate. Have a lovely holiday, whatever holiday you recognize.

The Baffled King Composing Hallelujah

image via Last.fm

This has been a year of mourning for the music community. We lost David Bowie in early January, then Prince in April, and now Leonard Cohen as we approach the close of 2016.

I have only been familiar with Cohen's work for about a couple of weeks. My boyfriend introduced him as the creator of Hallelujah, a song that I have always loved but had never heard the original version of. Which isn't actually that uncommon. Pitchfork released a post just yesterday marveling at the number of places this song has resurfaced, having been covered, tweaked, and arguably misinterpreted for a innumerable occasions.

 I have not yet explored the lyrically rich career of Leonard Cohen, but I'm confident that You Want It Darker, his last album, is a masterpiece. His voice aged so well, its already haunting, dirge-like tone accompanied by a depth that can only be brought on my maturity. The circumstances have become reminiscent of David Bowie's dark and beautiful Blackstar, preceding the artist's death by only days.

Leonard Cohen will be missed, sorely. As we continue to mourn the loss of this extraordinary writer and musician, I hope we can find comfort in all that he has left us to remember him by.

Regina Spektor's New Album Is Out

My apologies for the tardiness of this post. Regina Spektor's latest album Remember Us to Life came out over a month ago, and any of you who are interested in it have probably already listened through it several times by now. While I was very excited to hear that Regina was releasing new music, I was actually not that impressed with the album on the first listen. It has since grown on me, however, especially "Small Bill$" and "The Trapper and the Furrier." If you haven't heard of Regina Spektor, I want you to stop reading right now and go listen to her music. My absolute favorite albums are Songs and Begin to Hope.


I've actually written an article on the new album and my love for Regina in general on Millenial Influx, which you can read here.

If you haven't listened to Remember Us to Life, I would recommend it. If you have, what did you think of it?

Article on Music and Feminism at Millenial Influx

Greetings, mortals!

I've published an article on music and feminism at Millenial Influx. In particular, the article focuses on female listeners and the sexism they experience, both from male fans and from the media in general. You can read the full piece here. 

School has kept me pretty busy, and that's why I haven't been posting much in the past few months. But with a little determination, I hope to be back and posting at least semi-regularly soon.

James Joyce, Motivational Speaker

James Joyce (image via openculture.com)

I am interrupting our normal programming to bestow a bit of creative wisdom. You see, there are times when I feel unequal to the task of writing something truly great, because I fear that I have not a truly great mind. I fear that my interest in pop-culture and other seemingly base and worldly pursuits have produced in me an inability to express the truest and most noble pursuits of the human soul. Sometimes I wonder if I have traded in greatness for pleasure and lofty pursuits for trivial ones.

Surely I am not the only one who sometimes has these doubts. There must be at least a few of you who struggle as writers, artists, musicians, or what have you, to have faith in the excellence of your souls. Perhaps you, too, wonder if years of low-brow pastimes have dulled the keenness of your self-expression and the depth of your emotions.

When you are feeling these things, I encourage you to find inspiration in James Joyce. This man was the author of such great works as The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and the groundbreaking Modernist work, Ulysses, regarded by many as one of the most difficult works of literature to read. He was also the author of some of the dirtiest, skankiest love letters you may ever see. I won't post a link, for fear of scandalizing my dear readers, but I assure you that they are rather steamy.

If Joyce could linger in both the realms of the profane and the genius, then so (probably) can you. Take heart, and keep creating! And don't forget to tune in next week for more pop-culture and media related phenomena!

Observing Media Trends and Hipsters

Zooey Deschanel sporting "hipster" glasses. (image via Pinterest)

As I mentioned in a previous post, last year I took an incredible class on British Modernism. Although I really connected with many of the poems and works of fiction that we covered, my favorite thing about the class was that it drew connections between literature and other media. As well as reading the works of James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Ezra Pound, and numerous others, we visited the Modern Wing of Chicago's Art Institute, watched clips from Salvador Dali's film Un Chien Andalou, and became acquainted with changes in technology that affected the creative content produced during this time. This was my first introduction to a subject that has now become the only thing I feel a deep enough interest to write about.

I have always had an interest in drawing connections between things I observed in my content-saturated world. I would notice things like the way models were wearing their make-up in magazines, or how a certain actor or actress would suddenly appear in several films at once-- subtle trends that might start off in a small way, but over time would become more apparent. I still pride myself on having become aware of the now overused “hipster” trends in alternative rock and fashion before they permeated mainstream culture. (In other words, I was hipster before it was cool. Bet you haven't heard that one before.) I often found that many of the trends I noticed were somehow connected, or that I could predict what would happen in certain media based on the similarity of two things; such as when I speculated that Johnny Depp would make a good Mad Hatter, and some time later came across an advertisement for Alice in Wonderland 2010. 

It wasn't until the very year that I studied the works of the great British Modernists that noticing these trends was in itself an entire field of study. That's when I started taking classes in media. This opened up a whole new world to me, because I started realizing that my observations weren't useless or silly, and that I wasn't just trying to make meaning where there was none. Ever since, I have allowed myself to follow up on these observations, and to share them with you all on this blog.

Sometime I will tell you about an interesting connection I made while enrolled in these classes. But that is another story for another day.

Melora Creager, Amanda Palmer, Emilie Autumn, and the Burlesque Art

 Corsets made a comeback in the 1990s and 2000s. Neo-Burlesque artists like Dita Von Teese took the stage with vintage showgirl glamor, and films like Moulin Rouge! and Chicago hearkened back to the aesthetics of 20th century cabarets.

In the music world, we saw the debut of “dark cabaret” as a genre. Appearing in 1995, this term is used to describe rock music which borrows from the sounds and atmosphere of burlesque and cabaret performances. Since these types of shows were mostly comprised of female performers, it only makes sense that some of dark cabarets most influential artists are women. The three who stand out to me in particular are Melora Creager, Amanda Palmer, and Emilie Autumn.
        

Melora Creager began her career as rock cellist and the frontwoman of dark cabaret band Rasputina writing music manifestos and performing with the drag community of New York's East Village. She claims to have been one of the earliest influencers of the steampunk movement. Creager's lyrics draw heavily on strange and gruesome historical events, such as the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, and the cannibalism of the Donner Party. These themes are juxtaposed against her soft vocal style and waifish, corseted appearance.
                                      

The Dresden Dolls made their debut onto the dark cabaret scene in the early 2000s, led by the talented Amanda Palmer. Forming a duo with Brian Vigliones, Palmer's powerful vocals range from crooning to screaming. Many of their songs are overtly theatrical in tone, featuring crashing sound effects, dramatic pauses, and intense dynamic changes. An overarching lyrical theme in much of their work is finding power in the role of an oppressed female.
                                            

No one can beat Emilie Autumn, however, when it comes to theatrics. Her elaborate, burlesque-themed performances (featuring her personal troupe, The Bloody Crumpets) and Victorian costumes have made her unmistakable. Autumn is a woman of many talents: a skilled violinist (which drives much of her work), a strong vocalist, a poet, a composer, and a novelist. Raising awareness about mental illness is a strong driving force in her work, particularly her 2012 album Fight Like a Girl. 

All three of these women being powerful, forward-thinking, and innovative artists, one might wonder at the effectiveness of their choice to reach into the past to harness the sounds and aesthetics of a bygone era. After all, cabarets and burlesque performances were evidence of a male-dominated culture in which a woman's charms could be bought and sold, weren't they?

Actually, although the art of burlesque did appeal to the tastes of the average working-class man, these shows provided a platform for women to express themselves. 

Burlesque performances originally appeared in London theatres in the mid to late 1800s as a risque comedy act accompanying two other acts. Usually parodying a famous storyline, these performances featured musical numbers and bad puns. In many cases, female performers in scandalous attire mockingly took on the roles of men. The art of burlesque was about so much more than merely shocking the audience with the display of a lady's legs (with tights on, of course; let's not get too crazy). It was about calling into question everything that the audience believed through satire-- social conventions, romantic ideals, and even a woman's place in the world. Nothing could be sacred in the realm of the burlesque, and nothing could be profane.

The art of burlesque did not only empower female performers to publicly rejoice in the shape of their own bodies. Artists like Lydia Thompson and her British Blondes, whose appearance in New York helped to popularize the movement in the U.S., were the masters of their own shows and maintained creative jurisdiction.

It's only appropriate, then, that strong, female artists like Creager, Palmer, and Autumn should look to the art of burlesque for inspiration in their own work. 

Dark Cabaret has been a recent favorite genre of mine, so much so that I've created a Pinterest board dedicated to the subject. There you will find a lot more pictures of the lovely Melora Creager, Amanda Palmer, and Emilie Autumn.

References: 

http://radio.darkness.com/dark-cabaret/

http://www.lollipop.com/article.php3?content=issue59/rasputina.html 

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/oct/19/rasputina-cellist-melora-creager-discusses-steampu/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dresden_Dolls 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emilie_Autumn

http://www.burlexe.com/burlesque/the-history-of-burlesque-dancing/ 

https://library.osu.edu/projects/women-in-tights/beginnings.html 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burlesque

Subculture Exploitation Without Representation

                                                               (Image via Pinterest.)

 

The other day I stumbled upon a Zimbio slideshow titled “The Most Goth Movie Characters Ever.” I'm always on the lookout for subculture representation in media, so I was intrigued. Unfortunately, the article turned out to be a little misleading. I was expecting a comprehensive list of film characters who actually participated in the goth subculture. Many of the characters listed live in fantasy or sci-fi settings where their morbid sense of style, while it might appeal to goth viewers, is not really an act of societal rebellion. For example, the article included Professor Snape and Bellatrix Lestrange from the Harry Potter films, Trinity from The Matrix, and Darth Vader.

The slideshow also includes characters who are depicted as participating in an alternative lifestyle, and yet cannot be considered goth because of their lack of choice or understanding. Wednesday Addams would fall under this category, because her whole family is completely unaware that their lifestyle is anything other than ordinary. (Morticia Addams, oddly enough, doesn't appear in this list.) The same goes for Edward Scissorhands, because his aesthetic was chosen by his creator.

                       (Peg and Edward in Edward Scissorhands. Image via huffingtonpost.com)

A lot of characters on this list weren't really goth in any sense of the term. Ramona Flowers of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, for example, has an extremely colorful wardrobe which, while alternative, isn't goth in the slightest. The same applies to Amelie of Amelie. She may be strange, but that doesn't make her goth.

                                       (Ramona Flowers. Image via scottpilgrim.wikia.com) 

What I concluded from reading this list is that there seems to be a misunderstanding between character designs that borrow from the goth aesthetic, and characters who are actually portrayed as participating in the goth subculture. A lot of the characters listed in "The Most Goth Movie Characters Ever" have great style, but it would be nice to see more characters that actually represent the subculture.

The Frankenstein Aesthetic

 

 

(Boris Karloff as Frankenstein's monster in Bride of Frankenstein. Image via Wikipedia.)

If I asked you to picture Frankenstein's monster, odds are you'd conjure up an image of a flat-headed giant with green skin and bolts sticking out of both sides of his neck. This is the way that he has been portrayed in mainstream media for decades, and it's the image that most of us have grown comfortable with. As a matter of fact, I myself accepted this image as canon until very recently, when I started reading Mary Shelley's gothic novel, Frankenstein, for myself.

Shelley describes in detail the horrific visage of the monster, which causes his creator to flee in fear.


“His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips” (p. 55).


So, if the common conception of the monster's aesthetic did not come from Shelley herself, then where did it come from?


Film adaptations of Shelley's novel have been produced as far back as 1910, when Edison studios released the 16 minute silent film, Frankenstein. The film that really caught on, however, was released in 1931 by Universal Studios.

                  (Charles Ogle as the monster in 1910. Image via antifilmschoolsite.wordpress.com)


Universal Studios produced Frankenstein after receiving such dramatic success with their adaptation of Stoker's Dracula. Originally, the role of Frankenstein's monster was meant for Bela Lugosi, the Dracula star, under director Robert Florey. Both actor and director were replaced, however; James Whale took over as director, and Boris Karloff was chosen to play the monster.

The Frankenstein aesthetic is mostly attributed to Jack Pierce. Universal Studios hired this master makeup artist after the death of their own Lon Cheney, Sr. The look was achieved with hours of intensive labour and experimentation. Supposedly the idea behind the flat head was to convey the infamous doctor's building process: cutting the top of the head and then stretching the skin over the brain. This giant forehead was created by piling cotton on top of the actor's head. In order to attain the monster's cadaverous facial structure, Karloff removed his dental bridge. 

                                   (Karloff as the Monster. Image via dailygrindhouse.com.)


Universal Studios followed up with many sequels, only two of which featured Karloff as the monster: Bride of Frankenstein and Son of Frankenstein. The final film, released in 1948, was Abbot and Costello meet Frankenstein, a campy horror/comedy which includes Dracula and the Wolf-Man as well as Frankenstein's monster. This was actually one of the first horror films I ever saw, and despite its light-hearted nature, Frankenstein's monster actually scared me quite a bit! I think that this long line of films reinforced the Frankenstein aesthetic created by Pierce. This particular make-up look has appeared in other media, such as the television program The Munsters, in which the character Herman Munster bears an almost identical, albeit friendlier, resemblance to the original Pierce 
creation. 

 

 (The Munster Family. Image via tvguide.com.) 

Sources:

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Pierce_(makeup_artist)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstein_in_popular_culture

http://frankensteinia.blogspot.com/2007/10/make-up-man-jack-pierce.html

https://causeandfx.wordpress.com/2011/08/02/hollywood-make-up-legends-jack-pierce/

                                     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstein_(1931_film)
 

A Blog For Ideas

 

                                                      (Bob Dylan and Allen Ginsberg)

This is a blog about ideas. It's a place where we can analyze our favorite stories in any given medium, be they real or fictional, and think about what philosophies might be their driving force. It's a place where we can make connections between seemingly disparate facts and come to beautiful, terrifying, or incredibly trivial conclusions.


The main theme of most posts will be to pursue the ideas behind aspects of pop culture and alternative culture with an academic mindset, researching the history and ideas behind events and movements and linking them to a manifestation in the arts. My particular backgrounds are in literature, creative writing, and media, so most discussions will tend toward analyzing books, films, music, and advertising. I also have a particular interest in fashion trends, especially alternative movements such as the Goth and Punk scenes of the late 1970s and early 1980s.


I'd like for this to be a place where people feel comfortable sharing their thoughts and opinions. It is a privilege to be able to think freely and to communicate with other thinkers, and I would welcome in depth conversations about almost any topic.


Let me introduce myself, as a way of opening up the discussion. I am a senior English and Communication student at the undergraduate level, which means that I'm one year away from being young and free and glamorously unemployed. My particular concentration in college has been primarily poetry, but I dabble in fiction as well. Someday, I would love to write articles for a magazine like Rolling Stone. Currently I work at a bakery.


I would be delighted to have your company on Pinterest, where I keep track of all the best films, books, music, and other creative works I've come across, and where I go looking for inspiration from others. I will have a separate board for this blog, and will place a link there to each new post.

Upcoming Posts

Hello again, dear readers.

I apologize, once again, for the length of time that has passed since my last post. In that time, I have finished my junior year at college, started two very low-key summer jobs, watched through Peep Show, Daria, most of Parks and Rec, and two seasons of Sailor Moon. I also had my wisdom teeth removed, which was an unpleasant experience. I dyed my hair black all by myself for the first time, and, as it subsequently faded to an unholy shade of greenish grey, I have since had it all cut off. I have labored a little over a few poems and started writing a novel. I have also finished Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange, and have gotten halfway through Voltaire's Candide. I will be seeing the Violent Femmes live in less than a week, which I am extremely excited about.

Now that you are all caught up on my oh so interesting life, I must inform you of something very exciting I will be doing this summer, which will affect this blog. I am taking a class on blog and internet article writing, which means that I will be using this blog to submit assignments for the next six weeks. So, dear readers, if there are any posts that seem contrived or out of place, that will be the reason.

Until next time, dear readers. I hope that you will continue to learn and grow and experience beauty firsthand.

Cleopatra: The Lumineers

                          

The Lumineers have come out with a new album! This was surprising to me, actually. I pretty much exclusively associated The Lumineers with that short-lived but intense indie movement of 2012 (give or take a year or two). I wouldn't necessarily have considered myself a huge fan of theirs; I never did listen to all the tracks on their eponymous album, though I've had a special affection for "Ho Hey" and "Stubborn Love" since they came out.

I was pleasantly surprised right away when I noticed the cover art of the album. Appropriate to the title of the album, and perhaps appropriate to the theme of the title track "Cleopatra," the cover features a photograph of silent film actress Theda Bara dressed for her role as Cleopatra. I appreciated this tribute, as I often feel that silent films are not talked about very often in mainstream culture.

I'm really, really impressed with a lot of the tracks on Cleopatra. I'm quite picky when it comes to acoustic/folk music. When it begins to sound too much like country or ubiquitous singer-songwriter, I lose interest very quickly. There's something about this album, however, that kept my interest. It was soulful, and even a little sad. I think it was a bit more low key than their first album, and meditative in tone. Something I like about their choice in sound is that they mix different instruments and ideas that I wouldn't normally associate with their genre.

My favourite tracks were "Ophelia", "My Eyes", and "White Lie" (a bonus track on the deluxe version). Of these, I think my favourite is "My Eyes," because several times it tricks you into expecting the melody to proceed a certain way by using familiar chord progressions, but then suddenly it takes a completely different turn.

While celebrating the success of the Lumineers in producing this wonderful album, I would also like to take a moment to remember an artist that is no longer with us. Prince passed on today, at 57. I'm not that familiar with his work, but I've always heard him spoken of as genius, and have understood him to be extremely influential. This has been a very unfortunate year in the music world, as the talented David Bowie was also lost to us in January. They will be dearly missed.

Malá Morská Víla

     Thursday nights are often lonely for me. My roommate works late, so I often end up spending the evening in an empty room. A couple of weeks ago, being in such a situation, I was in the mood to watch something. Suddenly I remembered a film that I had discovered on Pinterest a long time ago. It was a version of The Little Mermaid produced in the 1970s in Eastern Europe. Having saved a link to this film on Youtube, I decided to finally sit down and watch it. As it happens, I had saved the wrong film. The film I had originally been looking for was Rusalochka, a 1976 rendition of the fairy tale. The film I had saved, however, was Malá Morská Víla, a 1975 rendition from the Czech Republic. I did not realize this until well after the fact, however, so I will probably be watching Rusalochka sometime in the future. I'm not sorry I made the error, however, because otherwise I might never have seen Malá Morská Víla, which is a beautiful film.           
               
                                                 (The Little Mermaid in her sea kingdom)

      One thing I enjoyed about this film was that there was little drama. I often get frustrated with contemporary films and television programs, because there is always such a strong emphasis on emotional tension. I often find this boring and predictable rather than stimulating. Instead, Malá Morská Víla places its primary focus on creating an atmosphere for the characters to live in. It moves at a slow and dreamlike pace, allowing you to take in this rich world and understand it. The film is also incredibly beautiful. The costumes are quite unusual; instead of looking like half-fish people, as mermaids are usually depicted, they wander about at the bottom of the sea in Dante-esque robes, in colors corresponding to the seas they inhabit. 

      The characters are delightful, and quite complex for a film with so little dramatic tension. The dialogue is very subtle; people speak in a plain, matter of fact fashion, and yet you get a good sense of what they are feeling. 
                  
                                                       (You sit on a throne of lies)
 

       I couldn't help comparing this film in my head to Disney's version of the story. To be honest, if I ever have offspring, I would rather they grow up with this version of The Little Mermaid than the Disney version. Even though the ending is rather sad, I think the message of the film on the whole is better. In the Disney version, Ariel is a bit of a brat. She doesn't have a good reason for wanting to leave home, except that she's in love with some random prince she's never even had a conversation with. She violently defends her position, making her father out to be the “bad guy” because he won't let her have what she wants. When she signs the contract with Ursula, she does so partly in pursuit of her dream, and partly as an act of rebellion against her father. (At least, that's what I interpreted from her facial expression. I could be wrong.) The deal Ariel makes with Ursula is, also, quite stupid. She has three days to make the prince fall in love with her; otherwise, she comes back to the sea as Ursula's property. True love, in this case, is represented by a kiss-- which, honestly, bothers me. One kiss doesn't mean true love. Love is something that takes a lifetime of commitment and sacrifice, not a moment of passion. Anyway. I don't think it's very realistic that Ariel and the prince fall so deeply in love in such a short time, and that what it takes for Ursula to break them up is to cast a spell on him.


           
                                         (Completely unsuspicious glowing beverage)



      What I don't like about Ariel's happy ending is that she gets it both ways. She gets to defy her father and still keep his favor, leave the sea for the land but still reserve the right to return-- it's as if no decision or action of hers has consequences. Every thing comes easily to her, even though-- let's face it-- she makes very bad decisions. The logic of the film, however, tries to make these decisions the right ones, after all. What this movie teaches is that romantic love never fails, and that you should throw everything else aside in pursuit of that love, which will definitely never result in scarred relationships or physical danger even when you decide to spend three days in a strange man's house, who could totally rape and kill you without anyone knowing or caring because you cut off all ties with everyone you know. 
                
                                          (The Little Mermaid...is not a mermaid anymore)

      The Little Mermaid of Malá Morská Víla, on the other hand, has a very different story and carries a very different message. In this version, the Little Mermaid acts out of wanderlust as well as a desire to escape an arranged marriage with a pedantic sexist. (That was harsh. He was actually kind of cute.) She makes a far less shady deal with a less shady sea-witch, whose requirements are that she must make the prince fall in love with her, or else she will be turned into sea foam when he marries someone else-- unless she kills him. I don't recall a time-limit. She does have to give up her voice, and also suffer horrible stabbing pains in her feet as she walks. While the Little Mermaid does not necessarily make a better decision than Ariel, the film does not make it seem that this was the best decision. The Prince falls in love with her for a time, and promises to marry her, but when he finds the woman that he believes to have rescued him, he changes his mind. And then he expects the Little Mermaid to be happy for him. Naturally she is heartbroken, and does think about stabbing him in order to save her own life. But she sees how much the other girl loves him, and decides not to. She dies.

        
                                                ("No, really; tell me more. I'm so interested.")

      What I like about this story is that there isn't a clear message about what the Little Mermaid did right or wrong. The important thing was that she made decisions, and these decisions had consequences. By the end of the film, you don't get the sense that the Little Mermaid was bitter before her death. She understood when she decided to leave the sea that she made a risky choice. Even though it didn't end well, she understood that this was the life she had made for herself, and was at peace. 

      Anyway, I really enjoyed watching Malá Morská Víla, and I hope you'll check it out sometime. Or should I say, Czech it out? (*readers leave in disgust.)

 

 

So Apparently I Have Trypophobia...

      Around Christmastime last year, I experienced a very strange feeling while baking. I was folding powdered sugar into a large bowl of batter. The powdered sugar gathered into small clumps as I stirred, forming tiny depressions in the surface of the mixture. For some reason, as I viewed these tiny holes with tiny powdered sugar balls nestled inside them, I was filled with an unreasonable feeling of dread and anxiety. It wasn't a serious or debilitating fear, and I continued the process to completion, but I was very confused as to why the sight of these tiny holes should cause me such discomfort. I supposed that I was just tired, and paid the experience very little mind.
        In January, I experienced a similar feeling while walking outside in the snow. The salt crystals sprinkled on the sidewalk caused small depressions in the snow similar to the holes in the batter. I felt the same unnamed sense of anxiety. I didn't like looking at these tiny holes, and at the same time, they fascinated me in a grotesque way. I was unsure of what to do with this feeling, and I was very confused as to why I should feel this way at all.
        Today, I was watching a video by Toxic Tears, a youtuber that I recently discovered and have been enjoying, and she mentioned that one of her phobias is tyrpophobia, the fear of small holes. When I looked up the term, the first thing that appeared on my screen was a string of pictures of tiny holes clustered together, some on plants and some photoshopped onto human skin. I was immediately filled with the same anxiety I had felt about the batter and the snow.
        Apparently trypophobia is extremely common. It has yet to be recorded in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V), but research on this topic has been taken seriously. The fear is a biological impulse; our brains often associate patterns of tiny holes with danger, because of the harmful things that occur in nature sporting a pitted surface; for example, certain venomous creatures such as the blue ringed octopus, tiny holes bored by insects, or certain skin diseases. For people with trypophobia, it does not matter if the cluster of holes they are looking at actually present a threat; either way, their first reaction is fear or disgust. For some people, the sight of tiny holes can actually cause panic attacks or physical responses such as sweating.
        If you think you may have trypophobia, please be cautious in your research. The internet pulls up a lot of images which, for someone who experiences this fear, could be really, really disturbing.
        
I got my information here.Warning: there are pictures.
http://www.medicaldaily.com/fear-holes-trypophobia-most-common-phobia-youve-never-heard-researcher-says-255357
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trypophobia
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/understanding-trypophobia-why-some-people-fear-holes/

Belated Comments on the Marilyn Monroe Superbowl Ad

     It may be a bit late in the game to comment on Superbowl advertisements, but there is one in particular that still bothers me. It was the Snickers advertisement featuring William Dafoe as Marilyn Monroe when she's "not herself" because she is hungry. It's ironic, because this commercial makes me as cranky as the people in Snickers ads, and the logical answer should be for me to eat a Snickers bar, but now I don't want to because it's Snickers that is making me cranky... 

Anyway, here is the advertisement:

 

     This advertisement annoys me for many reasons. First and foremost, I find it very insensitive to the memory of Marilyn. I don't think it's funny to make light of the amount of trauma that shooting this iconic scene caused the actress. It had to be done twice. The first time was on Lexington Avenue in New York, as a publicity stunt, amid hooting and harassment from male onlookers. Her husband, Joe DiMaggio, was extremely upset, and after the shooting was finished, the couple had one of their biggest fights. They divorced soon after. The footage collected was unusable, and had to be redone in a studio.

     I also dislike the way that Marilyn Monroe is portrayed in this ad. When Marilyn is hungry and “not herself,” she actually calls out the director for the stupidity of this scene, which is basically nothing more than an opportunity to show off Marilyn's body to ogling men. When Marilyn is given the Snickers bar and returns to her normal self, she becomes more than happy to pose suggestively for the shot. She no longer complains, either because she is enjoying herself or because she is no longer thinking for herself. This reinforces the idea of Marilyn Monroe as nothing but a brainless sexual object. That wasn't Marilyn at all. She was a complex, intelligent, and very troubled person. That side of her, unfortunately, wouldn't sell as well as her beautiful body and photogenic face. She was always forced to play the role of the “dumb blonde,” and this sent her into depression. While it was amusing to see William Dafoe in Marilyn's white dress, I think that on the whole the joke was in poor taste.

      If you want to read deeply into this ad, which I do, the wider rhetoric is that when women object to displaying their bodies for male pleasure, they are “cranky” and “not themselves,” and that the proper response to the objectification of their bodies is complacency and passivity.

I might be taking this ad a bit too seriously. I'm sure that no offense was intended by its creators. I just think it was careless, and I am disappointed.
 
     (Here are links, if you want to know a couple of places I got information about Marilyn, and especially this scene:
-http://thoughtcatalog.com/m-j-pack/2015/05/6-tragic-things-you-didnt-know-about-marilyn-monroe/3/
-https://setouq.com/marilyn-monroe-quotes/)

     (Also, just to clarify, I'm not actually intending to boycott Snickers, and I'm not saying that anyone should boycott Snickers. Obviously they aren't the first or last company to air an insensitive ad.)

To the Lighthouse and Down the Rabbit Hole

   "Women can't write, women can't paint."

    This is what Charles Tansley says in Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse, and it is a phrase that  haunts Lily Briscoe as she attempts to paint the landscape she sees in her mind. At times she doubts her abilities and despairs of creating anything worthwhile. Her vision contradicts the popular ideas about what paintings should be, just as her actions contradict the popular ideas about what a woman's life should be. In the end, it is her decision to finish the painting that matters, not the painting itself, because in that moment she decides who she is.

    I have been away from blogging for some time. In fact, I have been away from any serious writing in general. The last semester has been a struggle for me, and this present one even worse. I posted some time ago that I was experiencing anxiety about not being smart or creative enough. Since then, I've been up and down. I've been taking incredibly exciting classes and getting to know incredibly exciting people-- but I have also found myself severely limited by my own absurd expectations. I put a great deal of weight on my ability to read and write, and couldn't bring myself to do either except under the "right" conditions. If I was going to read something, my head had to be clear and I had to remember everything and interact with the content on a deep level. If I was going to write, it would have to be as genius and revolutionary as Joyce.

    It didn't help that someone whose judgement I respect told me that my poetry was a bit unoriginal. At the time, it felt like a challenge to do better. As I went along, however, the words began to weigh on me, the way Lily Briscoe felt the weight of "women can't write, women can't paint."

    Things have gotten better. I've begun to realize my errors, and slowly I think I may begin to be able to crawl out of the rabbit hole I seem to have fallen into. For now, I'm going to try to read and write more liberally, and see where that takes me. After all, my obligation is not to the task to perform it perfectly, but to myself to shape myself through these tasks.